The Book is in What Section?

In The Grand Canyon is How Old? PZ Myers whines like a little girl that the National Park Service includes in its bookstore The Grand Canyon: A Different View. The book attempts to explain the formation of the Grand Canyon from a young earth creationist point of view. The book isn’t in the science section of the bookstore but rather in the inspirational section.

There are various observations that can be made about why this is so upsetting to an undistinguished (other than by his militant atheism) Associate Professor of Biology at a small state university.

One observation is that he’s afraid his pet theory of life can’t stand up on its own merits against other theories and, not having sufficiently convincing evidentiary merits on his side, calls for censoring any opposing views. PZ Myers is basically showing himself to be a proverbial book burner lifted straight from the pages of the classic science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451.

Another observation is that Myers considers himself infallible in his beliefs and therefore, despite a vast majority of humanity holding a sincere belief that life is something more than a big accident, a cosmic gag reel, his little minority clique of self-annointed intellectual atheist snobs holds The Truth and if you don’t agree then you’re suffering God Delusions or you’re a moron or both. Myers isn’t immune to delusions himself. In this case it appears to be delusions of superiority.

Let me say, even on the assumption the universe is old, there are important scientific reasons we might have reservations about the efficacy of dating the Grand Canyon. Heck, even the old Earth Geologists themselves can’t agree.

A very fine YEC organization with a real medical and scienfic facility and a real univerisity, Loma Linda/GRI has published in mainstream peer-reviewed literature. In fact they got the cover story of the prestigious journal Geology in February 2004. This fine organization has reservations about the dating of the Grand Canyon.

They were not involved in this affair which Myers referenced, but their various papers available on the web make a compelling case as to why skepticism should be welcome regarding the grand canyon’s origin theory. For that matter skepticism should always be welcome…

DaveScot wrote:

One observation is that heÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s afraid his pet theory of life canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t stand up on its own merits against other theories and, not having sufficiently convincing evidentiary merits on his side, calls for censoring any opposing views.

Yeah, I saw that hatefest. Funny stuff. Nothing beats watching infighting amongst the enemy. If it gets physical I’m putting my money on Brayton. He must weigh twice as much as Myers so it’s all just a matter of physics. Lenny Flank, another evolution pundit hater of Myers must be getting a chuckle out of it too. I’m not sure if this rises to the level of Gary Hurd telling the PT boys to bugger off though. Flank and Brayton are nobody in particular while Hurd is a credentialed somebody.

I’ve been tempted to propose a new filing category to UD called “Priceless PZ Postings” (or something like that) in which we humbly bask in awestruck wonder of the elucidating enlightenment which emanates from Prof. Myers’ most…erm…insightful posts. Paul is one of ID’s best friends and should be treated as such. 😛

This might interest you. YEC, Walt Brown has been doing research regarding the Grand Canyon for years, and he just recently added his ideas about itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s origin to the 8th edition of his book which is currently in the works.

For the reader’s benefit, Walter Brown is a PhD from MIT in mechanical engineering. He went to MIT after graduating West Point and becoming an Army Ranger/Paratrooper. He finished his MIT PhD program there in only 3 years, and then went on to teach in the Air Force academy and was director of a 400 member defense science and engineering organization. Brown is also a former National Science Foundation Fellow.

Mats quoted from David Pogge. Pogge is an engineer and research Fellow of the Naval Air Warfare Center.

These guys are very bright, no-nonsense defense industry engineers. They follow in the time honored tradition of engineers bashing Darwinian biology.

Actually, regarding the literature that is at the bookstore which Myers referred to, it is unfortunate Brown’s book isn’t there (as far as I know anyway). When one reads Brown’s book, one will be amazed how little theology is referenced! His science is very good.

Crandaddy, sounds like a good idea to list/cite absurd quotes by the Darwinian left, perhaps we could vote on the worst (illogical anti-informationism) every month or quarter. I’ll bet Eugenie Scott makes the list.

One thing I’d like to add is, let’s assume the Earth is Old. An Old Earth does not imply the Grand Canyon is old. It’s evident I have a very great disdain for Darwinian evolution, but I have to this day respectful disagreement with the Old Earth community. Darwinian evolution is a bad thoery, right down there with spontaneous generation and perpetual motion machines. Old Earth geology and cosmology I respectfully have reservations about.

The principle argument with geological ages that really hit home came from those fine geologists at Loma Linda/GRI. Ariel Roth pointed out erosion alone would be wiping out the continents ever 100 million years or so. Something is really afoul of basic logic.

By noting the rates at which the surfaces of the continents are eroded and carried away by rivers to the oceans (see section 2 for specific values), one can calculate the length of time required to remove a given thickness of the continents. Judson and Ritter (1964) have estimated that for the United States the rate of erosion averages 6.1 cm/1000 years. At this rate of denudation the continents, which average 623 m above sea level, would be eroded to sea level in a mere 10.2 Ma. In other words, at this rate the present continents would be eroded over 340 times in the 3500 Ma assumed for the age of the continents. The observation by the famous geologist Powell that “mountains cannot long remain mountains” certainly seems appropriate. The estimate of 10 Ma given above has been a well-accepted figure (Schumm 1963) and has subsequently been referred to in a number of publications including Dott and Batten (1971, p. 136) and Garrels and Mackenzie (1971, pp. 114-115). Earlier, Dole and Stabler (1909) gave figures indicating that it would take about twice as long. Judson (1968), while correcting for human activity, suggests 34 Ma for complete erosion of the continents. None of these figures does much to alleviate the discrepancy which is especially significant when one considers mountain ranges such as the Caledonides of western Europe and the Appalachians of North America which are assumed to be several hundred Ma old. Why are these ranges here today if they are so old?

So let me be generous and say, the discussion is on the age of the Grand Canyon, not the age of the Earth. Even if we assume an Old Earth, the above questions remain, and they have bearing on the age of the Grand Canyon.